𝗛𝗮𝗿𝗱𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗦𝗼𝗳𝘁𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗲: 𝗔𝗻 𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗼𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝘂𝗹𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗼𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴, 𝗳𝗲𝗮𝘁. 𝗽𝗿𝗲𝗱𝗶𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗼𝘂𝘁𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘀
Insight—
𝗛𝗮𝗿𝗱𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗦𝗼𝗳𝘁𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗲: 𝗔𝗻 𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗼𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝘂𝗹𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗼𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴, 𝗳𝗲𝗮𝘁. 𝗽𝗿𝗲𝗱𝗶𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗼𝘂𝘁𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘀
Annotating should be practiced—heavily—in the context of instruction. I couldn't agree more to the thrusts of today's webinar.
Sadly though, since we have limited books and modules, plus they are recycled until applicable, annotating have been greatly discouraged in the country's reading culture (given that we have), and by extension in DepED.
I think, this new mindset of including annotation in instruction (culturally speaking) should be educationally institutionalized in the form pushing for a 1 is to 1 book-student ratio. And if possible, such books be actually given to students as opposed to being merely "issued."
This should be the case since learners are conditioned to be hesitant to mark the text because marking the pages, writing one's thoughts on the margins—have since been considered, even in the time of Rizal, a taboo .
It's hard to encourage annotation when you conditioned to your guts that books shouldn't be marked.
Hence, teachers come in the scene to say that it's okay to annotate, and that in fact, learners should. But they wouldn't rather say that it's okay to annotate on the very books that learners use.
So there goes the teachers' ingenuity in seeing to it that annotation gets practiced: they may encourage the use of pencils, make large visual aids to model annotation, and print hundreds of copies and give such to the learners so that they get to annotate on their own.
All these efforts depend heavily on the teachers' personal capacities. And if a school allows a teacher to photocopy, how long will it take until the teacher gets reprimanded for wasting paper?
I personally think that, while teachers are being up-skilled in the "software" through webinars, as an educational institution, DepED as a whole should also up-scale its hardware—such as ensuring 1:1 book-student ratio, better classrooms, better libraries, better teaching tools, etc.
This is not easy. And I believe that there are strong efforts in achieving this. Also, alternative strategies are present to sort of offset what is needed. Plus, one should not discount the personal efforts of teachers in the field as they often do the offsetting themselves.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that hadn't this pandemic happened, a one-to-one module-student ratio wouldn't have been considered at all.
Furthermore, I also think that it would be helpful if those in the grassroots would feel that these hardware improvements are being up-scaled at the same time as they are being put into up-skilling.
Thus, this prediction—If up-skilling only occurs solely at the teachers' end, the cycle of having least learnt competencies will take eons to eradicate.
